47,000 Ticks on a Moose, and That’s Just Average. Blame Climate Change.
Kendra Pierre-Louis
By Kendra Pierre-Louis
Oct. 18, 2018
The biggest number of winter ticks that Peter J. Pekins ever found on a moose was about 100,000. But that moose calf was already dead, most likely the victim of anemia, which develops when that many ticks drain a moose’s blood. So it was probably a lowball estimate, because some of the ticks had already detached.
“It’s about as grody a picture as you can imagine on a dead animal,†said Dr. Pekins, a professor of natural resources and the environment at the University of New Hampshire. (A warning: The pictures below are, indeed, grody.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/climate/moose-ticks.html
